


The Fragile

by iconoplastic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Awkward Tension, Blood and Injury, Cruciatus, Dementor's Kiss, Dementors, Dittany, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sex, Spinner's End, Wolfsbane Potion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2020-10-28 15:37:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 17,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20780972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iconoplastic/pseuds/iconoplastic
Summary: Snape ends up with a mysterious muggle girl in his charge. After she nearly experiences a Dementor's Kiss, Severus must work to heal her while also dealing with his own injuries.sola dosis facit venenum"Teen"/"Mature" (Depending on your option of descriptions of blood/injury) rating until chapter 11





	1. The Crypt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus is sent on a strange errand

With a sound that crackled through the still, thick air of the crypt much like heat lightning on a muggy summer night, Severus Snape aparated out of the gloom. With wand out and breath stilted, he assessed his surroundings. He was in a dark, stone passage with a tapered ceiling. All that could be heard was the heavy patter of rain from the graveyard above muffled by a thick layer of earth. 

As he crept forward, he pressed his body against the mossy brick wall of the hallway, despite that this allowed cobwebs to collect on the outside of his dark robes. This was a place supposedly unknown to all but the most powerful wizards, Dumbledore himself having sent Severus on this mission. But plans leak and one can never be too careful. 

After some time, the hallway opened to reveal a large room, dark and mossy, with tomb lined walls. Much the same design as the hallway with the exception of the enormous bell jar in the center of the room. Brilliantly pellucid and untarnished, it stood in stark contrast to the aged dust and grime of the surrounding catacombs. It even defied the very darkness of the crypt by emitting its own eerie, faint light.

Standing still in the threshold, Severus muttered a spell and scanned the room with his wand. Relieved to find nothing and no one out of the ordinary, he tentatively stepped into the room. He slowly traced a path around the towering bell jar, taking in the massive structure and disturbing the thick layer of dust that had settled around it. His footfalls made a light “tip, tap” on the cobbled stone floor.

After completing the full circle, Severus retrieved a peculiar blue and gold pocket watch and held it up to his face, squinting a bit to read it in the darkness. He was told this spell was highly time sensitive- to the point where it was only able to be performed one night a year- so precision and punctuality are of the utmost importance. He watched a few moments as the many gilded hands of the timepiece clicked neatly into place, signifying the proper alignment of the stars. Severus then reached into the secret inner pocket of his robes to retrieve an ancient and yellowed parchment handed to him in confidence by Dumbledore earlier that evening. He usually preferred to take time to study spells before casting them, but this mission was sprung on him so suddenly this was the first time he was able to really even look at the parchment much less read it. 

Unfurling the scroll, he watched as a full page of a dead language in a shaky script mottled with ink stains and strange sigils rolled out before him. 

"Lumos" Severus held his illuminated wand to the paper and began the incantation, his deep voice so low it all but bled into the sound of the rainstorm above. As he progressed down the page the energy in the room began to shift. Where the air had been dank and still, a light wind began to form and whip in whirling spirals around the ominous glass jar. A sparkle of static energy seemed to be building up, causing Snapes lank hair to raise on end ever so slightly and with it bringing a ping of anxiety to the pit of his stomach. It almost began to feel as if the storm outside was seeping its way into the underground chamber. The petrichor smell of rain and dirt began to fill the air, though no moisture actually fell. Instead, a thick fog began to roll in and settle in the room at ankle-height. The jar itself began to hum with the electricity building inside, and reminded Severus of a Tesla coil when it would send an errant arc of electricity across the room at one of the many unlit iron sconces.

His voice grew louder to compete with the frequency of the jar and the crackling sparks that continued building in intensity. He reached the final words of the spell “Hydria revelare!” and the bell jar suddenly illuminated brilliantly from within, blinding Severus in the flash. As though expertly timed, a booming round of thunder sounded at the same moment with such force the ground quivered around him.

Feeling vulnerable and somewhat stupid, Severus cowered backwards, involuntarily bringing his hands to his eyes. The room had gone dark and silent again, but he still had lights swimming before his eyes from the flash. With the sudden silence he realized his breath had become frantic and heavy and he could hear his racing heart pounding in his ears. He took a moment to still himself, he slowed his breathing and in turn his heart rate until all he could hear again was the muffled rain and his eyes once again adjusted to the darkness.

But the darkness wasn't as full as before. He still saw what he originally thought was just another abstract form of the flash afterburn, but as his eyes adjusted he saw there was now a figure in the bell jar, and it was giving off its own pale light. 

Stepping forward and adjusting his eyes, he saw more clearly the form of a young woman. She was lying supine with her arms crossed over her chest like a corpse. Her pale skin glowed eerily all over, the light only broken up by the dark tendrils of her hair cascading down her shoulders and the fitted dress she wore. The dark floral-patterned dress ended at her knees and after that she was barefoot. She had a slightly cherubic face, with thick eyelashes that grazed her lightly-flushed cheeks. 

Severus gazed at the woman, baffled. Though Dumbledore never told him what exactly he was sent here to retrieve, he supposed perhaps an ancient tome? Maybe an enchanted locket? A magical creature, even! In all the realms of possibility never would he have thought an actual human woman been what he was meant to collect. “Not sure why I have to keep reminding myself to never underestimate the old dingbat.” Snape thought.

Suddenly, the glass of the bell jar seemed to go all wobbly and became streaked transparently with iridescent ribbons. He could just barely see his own distorted reflection gazing back at himself before he unconsciously reached out his hands towards it and grazed it lightly. The whole thing popped unceremoniously like a giant soap bubble. The now-liquid jar splattered in glittering droplets all around the room, pattering through the haze, and vanishing without a trace. The heavy fog that still hovered ankle height quickly filled the void where the jar had been.

Severus had little time to be startled or even really contemplate the events of the night thus far. “Always stay steadfast to the mission and think of the particulars while safely in bed” was his general survival tactic and it worked for him so far. He gingerly stepped into the space the bell jar had been, causing grey fog to be kicked up and swirl around his robes. He then crouched down above the woman, taking in her appearance more clearly, scrutinizing as though she was a riddle to be solved. 

The grey fog flowed around her like a dark sea, ebbing and flowing around her features. Her pale skin was no longer glowing. It was almost as though she had been in the process of materializing before and now she was fully of this realm. He suddenly felt bad for her. He had no idea where she had come from, but being summoned to be used as a pawn in a wizarding war wasn't something he would wish on anyone. He knew from experience.

He touched her lightly on the shoulder and after a moment her eyes slowly opened. The dark brown orbs were unfocused for a moment and then she suddenly took in a big gasp of air as though it was the first breath she had taken since she had appeared. She bolted upright, and her eyes and Severus' met. He saw nothing but abject terror in hers. 

"W-where…?" She asked breathlessly. Severus simply held a finger to his mouth and whispered "No time, follow me..." He had no desire to discuss particulars, especially in the middle of these dank catacombs.

In a state of shock, she stood and obeyed the demand of dark robed figure, following him close behind through the cold, dark tunnels of the crypt. She assumed it was all a dream and, in her experience, it's just easier to go along than resist and allow it turn into a nightmare. 

Although, when the cloaked figure tightly grabbed her wrist to keep her close down the hallway, it did feel scarily real.


	2. The Werewolf

Due to the wards ancient wizards had weaved on the crypt, you had to travel nearly all the way to the entrance to apparate. After a few silent minutes walking single-file at a steady pace they finally made it, the exit into the graveyard was right behind a rotten wooden cellar door that rattled in front of them from the howling wind outside. The storm had picked up quite a bit and it looked like rain had been seeping in, cascading down the short stairwell, and forming a deep puddle before them.

Even with the sound of the storm, the low rumble of a growl from behind them was unmistakable. Severus' hair stood up on the back of his neck as he recognized that growl as Fenrir Greyback, a fearsome werewolf and occasional colleague of his, though he hoped he was wrong. A thousand questions jumped to the front of Snape's mind but he suppressed them. It was time for action, speculation is for if we survive. They both turned as Fenrir in werewolf form emerged from the shadows of a disused side corridor and snarled menacingly. His pointed pink tongue, dripping thickly with saliva, darted out to lick his sharp fangs.

Before Severus could stop her, the girl slipped from his grasp, turned heel and ran, exploding out of the door and into the muddy graveyard. Before he could decide what to do the choice was made for him as Fenrir began to lunge at him. Quickly whipping his wand out, he thought “Oppugno!” and a section of the hallway collapsed over the werewolf in heavy boulders. Fenrir shrieked painfully. Turning to escape, Severus slipped and fell hard into the muddy puddle from a combination of the slick ground and Fenrir having reached a furred claw out and entangled serpentine with hem of his cloak. In an attempt to brace his fall, the palms of Snapes hands were scraped horribly on the craggy stone wall of the passageway. 

Before Severus could move, Fenrir’s other claw whipped out and tightly grabbed him around the left ankle, claws digging painfully into flesh and tearing horribly, quickly summoning a stream of crimson blood to the surface. Severus whipped around, practically tangled in his robe and aimed another “Oppungo” spell, this time missing his mark slightly and hitting the wall above them both, covering himself in the explosion of rubble as much as Fenrir. The werewolf released his grip for a moment and Severus dragged himself out through the mud and debris to the stairs. As he stood, so did Fenrir, shaking the dust and rubble from his wiry silver coat. He was not standing as upright as before, the rubble having done some damage, but he was still no less as intimidating. Collecting himself, Severus aimed his wand steadily at Fenrir and thought “Sectumsempra!” The werewolf yelped and flailed in pain as hundreds of dark red cuts magically sliced their way onto his skin. Blood erupted from the cuts like a sick fountain. 

Severus used this moment to take the stairs two at a time and then slammed shut the door to the crypt. “Colloportus!” he thought, wand aimed at the door. The doors made a strange squelching sound as though they had expanded themselves to cover the threshold more securely. The door was locked, but who knows how long it would truly hold. 

Snapes legs suddenly collapsed under himself- partially from the adrenaline that had just ransacked his body, partially the sopping wet uneven ground he now found himself on, but mostly, the fresh wounds he had acquired. He knew what werewolf-caused wounds could do, and he was absolutely furious. Furious at himself for being caught off-guard so easily and at Dumbledore for sending him on this mission in the first place. He grit his teeth and lurched himself up onto his feet. His duties were never truly done, were they? “Any healing will have to wait for later, and hopefully it wouldn’t be too late…” he thought, almost apathetically, taking a sideways glance at the torn trousers and the heavy stream of blood that was how mingling with the puddles of the heavy downpour.

He was already absolutely drenched even though he had only been out in the rain maybe 30 seconds. His robes clung heavily around him as he surveyed the graveyard. The storm was so thick he could only see about 10 yards in front of him in any direction. The huge trees of the surrounding forest rustled strangely in the heavy wind and a chill traveled down his spine. Finally, he noticed a muddy trail of footprints leading away from the crypt, and up a smallish hill to his left. He followed the footsteps with his eyes and then what he saw in the distance made his stomach drop.


	3. The Dementor

She had one look at that beast and she decided she no longer wanted any part of crypts or werewolves. The sight of those glistening teeth and hungry tongue was all it took to wake her from her passive state of shock she had found herself in. Whether this was a dream or nightmare, or heaven-forbid, real life, she couldn't stop herself from running.

She pounded up the slick stairs, flung open the door, and stormed off into the rain. It poured down in thick sheets, and before she knew it, she was completely soaked to the bone. She ran through the mud with her bare feet like a feral animal being chased. Running off in a random direction, it didn’t take long for her to realize that she was in a cemetery. 

“Oh, perfect” she said aloud, slowly coming to a stop and surveying the collection of crumbled obelisks and statuary surrounding her. A huge crumbled statue of an angel stood before her, arms and wings outstretched, its face looking both serene and foreboding all at once. As she stared at the statue, a howling wind blew suddenly over her and she shivered, as goose-pimples traveled down her body from her shoulders to her mud-spattered legs. Cold raindrops harshly peppered her body like birdshot and the wind nearly knocked her over. 

She suddenly felt a looming presence behind her, and thought for a moment it was the man from the crypt again. But this thing was bigger, and as she turned to look at it, its immensity consumed her entire field of vision until all she could see was a dark void under it’s tattered hood. She gulped thickly, wanting to cry out but the sound getting stuck in her throat.

It was as though the frigid gust of wind came again, but this time it swept straight through her body like she was a ghost, replacing her insides with complex crystalline structures of ice. As the dark form loomed over her, rotten bony fingers emerged and began digging into her shoulders and holding her in place- Holding its prey in place. Fight or flight kicked in again, but all too late she found herself under a trance that held her steadfast. 

Her eyes were wide and dilated from terror. A dark vignette began to form around the sides of her vision, slowly closing her in more and more. She then felt like she was inside herself, falling backwards in slow motion into a dark endless pit. Her body became nothing but an empty and numb puppet as her ‘self’ seemed to retreat into the dark prison behind her eyes. In this small and dark place a feeling of utter despair sprung to the front of her mind, as if all hope and light was gone from the world. As though she would never be happy again. It wasn’t that she had been “happy” before she encountered this ghastly spectre- terrified and confused more like. But it was a feeling like something she didn’t even know was hers was ripped away and broken, and then at that moment realizing it had been the most precious thing in the world.

She tumbled deeper and deeper into this pit of despair and loneliness inwardly as outwardly she stared fixated on the pitch blackness under the Dementors hood. The pair seemed to hover above the ground, now. Although only being grasped by boney claws by the shoulders, the girls body hung limply about 2 feet in the air, suspended mostly by magic. Closer and closer, its blank face crept towards hers. The unearthly glow she had before returned to her, and seemed to radiate upwards towards her lips. Met with no resistance, the Dementor slowly began to syphon her essence from her with its deadly kiss. A stream of the pale light began to funnel from her lips and into the hooded creature- the glow slowly retreated from her limbs and her fingertips and toes turned grey.

Distorted, as if from underwater, she faintly heard someone shout “Expecto Patronum!”  
Through her tunnel vision she could make out a strange silvery glow coming from one side as the form of a beautiful doe rushed at the dark spectre. The bony fingers at once loosened their grip and her form fell, crumbled, to the muddy earth. The icicles in her heart shattered then at the release and slowly began to thaw as all faded to black.

The Dementor cried out a horrible shriek and retreated away from the patronus and into the rainy night. After a moment, Severus relaxed his arm and stashed his wand away as his silver patronus evaporated in a burst of shimmery dust. At a half run, pained from his injuries, but anxious to make their escape, he quickly closed the distance between himself and the woman. He bent down shake her awake and felt that her skin was as cold as a corpses and saw her lips were tinged blue.

“Shit” he thought. 

He scooped her up tightly in his arms without a look back at the crypt and aparated away with a loud crack.


	4. Spinner's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stars twinkled above and they made Severus sick.

The night was still and cool in Cokesworth and it felt a world away from the one they had just left behind at the cemetery. Huddled together on the weed-infested sidewalk, Severus and the mysterious girl were at the end of a cul-de-sac populated by smallish homes with boarded up windows with broke-down, abandoned vehicles in front. The silence of the street was almost deafening.

The house they found themselves in front of was nearly identical to the rest of the neighborhood, although it looked as though a section of it had caught on fire at some point and burned until only a black charred frame remained. The house looked as if it had been painted yellow a half century ago, but years of being choked with factory smoke lent a dirty and grey look to it, like old wash water. There was graffiti on the boarded windows and the weeds in the lawn grew nearly to ones waist. There was also what some might call a “force-field” surrounding the building, visible only to those so magically inclined so see it. 

The stars twinkled above and they made Severus sick. He felt dizzy- mostly from the pain but being whirled around while apparating didn't help. The sound of an animal knocking over a garbage can in the distance suddenly put him on edge. Severus collected himself for a moment before lifting the woman in his arms and carrying her through the magical field and towards his tiny childhood home. The transparent filter warbled a bit as they crossed through. The appearance of the home didn’t actually change much after they crossed the threshold besides that the windows weren’t boarded up and the kitchen hadn’t actually burned down. It was just an extra illusion Severus added to prevent squatters and to keep muggles away, in general. The weeds were truly that untamed and the house really was the color of smoke. 

Ten or so long, soggy strides up the stone path and they reached the front door, Snapes long robes dragged the ground behind him and left a wet trail tinged with blood. After stepping through the stone-floor entryway, they made their way into the first room of the small home. It was a small sitting room made oppressively smaller by the wall-to-wall bookshelves that loomed tall and over-burdened above their heads. There was a small brick fireplace directly in front of them, to the left a small portal that seemed to lead to a kitchen and to the right a closed door with a patina of chipped white paint. There was a small collection of threadbare furniture arranged around the cold fireplace- a grey settee, a dusty green wingback armchair and a few, strategically placed, knobby end tables, all with their own collection of dog-eared books stacked in tall, architecturally-unsafe towers. Even the red oriental rug that stretched its length over the majority of the worn wooden floor of the room had seen better days and was tread dangerously thin in several spots. 

Severus laid the woman down on the worn settee, mud from her legs and clothing smearing into the old fabric. He stepped back and shook off his rain-heavy cloak. It fell to the floor in a wet mound with a thump. Aiming his wand at the fireplace, it suddenly sparked to life and began to benefit the both of them with its light and warmth. Taking a moment to triage their situation, Snapes eyes passed over the cold, wet body of the woman lying prone on the couch. He pointed his wand at her wordlessly, as warm air spilled from the tip and dried her clothes and hair to some extent. 

‘That would have to do for now’ he thought, as he went into the kitchen, ignoring how his own clothing was still dripping wet. He brushed his fingers through his jet black hair and shook out a bit of the excess moisture. With a slight wave of his hand, the candles embedded on the walls and in a small candelabra on the ceiling illuminated dimly. The kitchen was equipped much like any mid-century kitchen might have been except for the strange collection of potions equipment littered throughout. The counters were set up with all manner of flasks, burners, and bottles. What had once been a built-in spice rack, was now overflowing with various reagents in amber jars, some possibly illicit. The countertop and floor were burned as though by acid in many spots and the whole room had a strange astringent odor from everything mingling together in the stagnant air. A kitchen table in the corner groaned under the weight of a large cast iron cauldron, the enchanted green fire underneath causing its contents to bubble lazily within. The windows in the room had been covered at some point by thick woolen blankets tacked haphazardly over them, but a beam of moonlight still somehow made its way through and sliced the room in half with its pale blue light. 

Severus opened a small pantry door and scanned the labels until he found what he was looking for. Due to his close work with the Order, and Remus Lupin in particular, brewing a surplus of wolfsbane potion had become routine for Severus. Lucky that, as it usually took over a week to brew and the ingredients were expensive and rare. But being under the eye (and sometimes thumb) of Dumbledore meant that was never a prohibiting factor in commissioning a steady flow of the potion from Snape. 

Severus roughly dragged one the chairs over uneven tile from it’s home under the dining table and sat. He gently inched his pant leg up to reveal the five deep claw marks Fenrir had generously gifted him. He hissed lightly as the exposure to the air alone was enough to make them sting painfully. The gashes oozed blood in response to the sudden exposure. Making quick work of it, Severous used his wand to clean the muck and grime from the wound so he could see how truly deep into his flesh they were carved. He then began weaving a slightly sing-song spell above the wound, the gashes began to slowly retreat as pink, healed flesh grew in its place. When they were about halfway healed, the growth of new skin paused and try as he might, he couldn't get the wound to fully close. Halting the spell, the wounds reopened themselves, and only a small band of raised, pink scar tissue surrounded the gashes. Frustrated, Severus slammed his wand onto the table, causing one of the legs to buckle slightly before returning to it’s magically reinforced state. 

If this wound was cursed then no ordinary healing spell would work. “Accio gauze” he thought, as a roll of the clean white dressing sailed towards him from a cabinet across the room. He wound it tightly around his leg in several layers only stopping when the blood was no longer able to seep to the surface. 

He then revisited the wolfsbane potion which he had left sitting on the counter. Severus had read in a potion journal that the elixir had the potential to thwart lycanthropy from taking hold on someone if drank immediately after exposure, but case studies were scant and it was all in the realm of theory. “‘I’ll need to write a paper on the results” he thought sardonically as he unstoppered the bottle. Although he wasn’t bitten, even scratches from a transformed werewolf had the possibility of transferring the virus and, the way his wound was behaving, he didn’t want to take any chances. 

Steeling himself, he held the vial to his lips, tipped it backwards and drank. The thick, bitter liquid coated his throat on the way down and nearly made him gag with how vile it tasted. When he had finished the bottle he angrily sent it smashing into the kitchen floor. 

He had successfully made it his entire life up to this point without enduring a werewolf injury- quite a feat compared to most, he might add- and this is how it happened? Why had Fenrir even been there? More importantly, would Fenrir be able to recollect who he had attacked? His mind began to reel. It could possibly mean the end of his double-agency if Fenrir reported to Lord Voldemort who he found lurking around strange magical catacombs with a young muggle woman. He could think up an excuse, but he would rather it not some to that at all.

Suddenly overwhelmed with nausea, Severus hunched over the kitchen sink and retched. Nothing came up but a stream of thick saliva poured from his mouth anyway, his salivary glands working overtime to erase all trace of the potion from his mouth. Spitting bitterly, he stood bracing himself over the sink for a moment. The potion was now churning in his stomach and feeling much like a pit of upset snakes. His limbs tingled unpleasantly and he began to feel numb at his fingertips as the potion entered his bloodstream. 

“And the dementor?” he pondered. Loyal to Lord Voldemort, it wasn’t out of the question for one or two to follow Fenrir and the other werewolves on their hunts to finish off the victims left in their wake. Perhaps, then, the cemetery was regular hunting grounds for Fenrir and it was all a terrible coincidence. Still, he felt uncomfortably tense with the anticipation of his dark mark searing awake any moment now with Voldemort's dark summoning.

He grabbed an old tea towel and wiped his mouth. “And the girl?” He glanced back through the doorway to the sitting room. He could just see her mud-caked legs and bare feet from his vantage point, still unmoving, though the fireplace cast strange moving shadows around the room. “Who was she...?” 

He moved back to his potion storage and grabbed another vial. He had recently been experimenting with a more effective treatment for people who have had run-ins with dementors. It was, in essence, chocolate syrup, he admitted, but he had added a custom blend of dried herbs and flowers with various enchantments to the brew to additionally help dissipate any residual effects. Of course, it hadn’t been tested, but it was unlikely to cause extra harm and it was the best he could do for the girl at the moment. 

He moved carefully back to the sitting room, his injured leg and ebbing nausea slowing his movement. He tried to position her upright a little bit before sitting on his knees on the floor beside her. Her bare shoulders still felt deathly cold, but seemed to have been helped a little with the fireplace and dried clothing. Her face was contorted into a pained scowl, her brow furrowed and beaded with cold sweat, thin frown-lines framed her purple lips. His mind flickered back to the scene in the cemetery. The Dementor had nearly completed it's kiss by the time he reached her. She was in for at least two days of recovery, though he knew if Madame Pomfry were to have a say she would probably make it a solid week.

He unstoppered the bottle and gently placed his hand in the crook of her neck in order to hold her head back and trickle-feed the potion down her throat. The grimace that had been etched on her face noticeably relaxed, and a rosy hue slowly grew on her cheeks. Snape took the back of his hand and held it to her forehead, briefly noticing for the first time the gravel-filled scrapes on his palm from when he fell. She felt a normal temperature once again. Sighing with relief, he took a moment to consider her then. Slightly chubby cheeks, pouty lips, a halo of dark curls around her face. The warm glow that had came to her cheeks highlighted subtle freckles and reminded him, somehow, of Lily- how flushed she would become when she would run after him sometimes during their Summers home from Hogwarts. He shook away these thoughts, quite literally, by quickly tossing his black curtain of hair side to side. 

This strange girl was nothing but a burden to him and an unwelcome interruption to his Summer break that was usually spent in quiet isolation. Dumbledore would really have to explain himself well for this one… 

The girl stirred slightly then, moaning lightly with lips parted, and he allowed himself to be taken in by her cherubic features once more. Unable to resist, he lightly brushed one of her soft shoulders, warm from the fire, relishing in the feeling of flesh-on-flesh. It had been forever since he had gotten to experience the simple pleasure. Her body temperature had raised nicely now, and he knew the physical complications were behind her. Any mental residuals, however...

“Accio draught” he thought, hand outstretched towards the kitchen. A small vial with “Draught of Sleep” written on the side soared across the room and into his hand. Leaning her head backwards again, he poured about half the vials worth into her mouth and stoppered the remainder, pocketing it.

He stood, then, and lifted her from the couch. He carried her into the extra room by the front door. It was a cramped little room, stocked high with cardboard boxes, spare furniture, luggage, and, unsurprisingly, more books. Nestled into the back corner was a small bed, neatly made, with two pillows and a thick quilt. Severus roughly pulled up the blankets with one hand and settled her into the bed. For a moment he considered changing her into fresh clothing but quickly decided that would be pushing the line.

Half a vial of draught of sleep, he knew, would buy him a considerable amount of time. He could relax a bit knowing she was was no longer actively dying and also wouldn't be awake to probe him with questions until morning. He backed out of the room, gently shutting the door behind him. He then crossed the sitting room and opened a secret doorway hidden in the bookshelf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this was a long one. One of my goals in writing this is to be heavy with the atmosphere so you can really get sucked into the world but I also like it to be more on the short side.  
Also, I wanted to mention my ideas behind the Snape house are largely based on the fanfiction "A Difference in the Family: The Snape Chronicals" by Rannaro. I know in the movies it is a row house, and _maybe_ in the books it is described as such (?) but I always liked the idea of the town being a little more remote and each house being a tiny thing with it's own yard.


	5. Herbology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severus takes a bath

Severus trudged up the narrow, unlit staircase to the 1st storey of his home. At the top of the stairs there was a small landing with a doorway on the right leading to a bathroom and a doorway right at the top of the stairs that lead to Snapes own tiny bedroom. He entered the bedroom and the various candles that were strewn about lit themselves with a wave of his hand. The faded striped wallpaper that lined the walls was peeling badly and one part even sadly drooped completely from wall. The two tiny windows here had also been covered haphazardly with blankets. The majority of the space was taken up by a rather large four-poster bed with what looked like a rather lumpy mattress. The sheets were disheveled terribly, but with the state of the rest of the room, it didn't feel too out of place. There was also a rather large trunk at the foot of the bed that was well worn and, one would assume, once held Snapes belongings when he attended Hogwarts. Though, it was so ancient, it looked like it might have been a hand-me-down from his Mother.

Standing in the center of the room, Severus’s hands went to the tight collar of his robes and methodically began the task of unbuttoning the dozen or so buttons of his cassock. As he reached mid-chest he glanced up suddenly and caught his own eyes staring back at him from a tall antique dressing mirror tucked into one corner of the room. 

He thought he looked wretched. His hair was hair limp, wet, and hanging in thick strands that framed his gaunt face. The dark circles under his eyes looked particularly harsh in the candle light and his skin looked a touch more sallow than usual. He noticed he was sporting a rather large scrape on his face from when he fell during the fight, crusted in dried blood. Recalling the events of the night he suddenly noticed how utterly sore he was all over. He decided to continue unwrapping himself to see what other surprises lay in store. 

His robe pooled to the ground around his feet and he took in the sight of himself. His somewhat bony body was scraped up badly and dark bruises were already beginning to blossom on the surface of his pale skin. He turned to one side and saw he had several dozen deeper cuts decorating the side that took the brunt of the ceiling collapse.

He huffed to himself, and trudged to the bathroom. With the rubber stopper in the drain, Severus began to fill the oversized claw-foot tub. He was never really one to mess with the frivary of highly perfumed or dyed bath water like many other wizards- or at least that is what he would tell you. He hated to admit it, but he always had a soft spot for eucalyptus water. The green and herbal steam transported him back to when he was still a young student, picking ingredients during herbology for his potions extracurricular activities. Happier times, if put into the perspective of his current lifestyle. 

He unhooked the silver buckle on his belt, then the matte black buttons of his trousers before slipping them off in pile around his legs. Tucking his thumbs under the elastic of his black briefs he slid them down to his ankles as well. Stepping out of the heap, he sunk one leg into the warm water, it was hot to the point of only just being able to tolerate, his favorite. He braced for a second then committed to lowering his bandaged left leg into the water. He was met with searing pain as the wound adjusted and lightly tinted the water around it pink. He groaned aloud as he lowered the rest of his body. Sinking into the water felt amazing, but this too was tinged with pain from the peppering of scrapes and cuts he had endured along his body. He slunk all the way down and submerged his head under the water. The cut on this face stung, but he stayed under as this was somewhat of a ritual for him. He liked to try to hold his breath as long as he could stand to. He felt a few tiny air bubbles tickle his face as his hair languidly swayed against his cheeks. He remembered doing this as a kid in this very tub. This strange muted underworld was somehow relaxing to him. Underwater he couldn’t hear the fighting, the yelling. He felt insulated, isolated, and safe. 

When he finally came up, he inhaled deeply the herbal, steamy air that had filled the small bathroom. He was taken back to some of his favorite times during his tenure at Hogwarts. When certain potions ingredients would run out, he would go to the greenhouse on the weekends when no one else was there. He would spend hours clipping and snipping, gathering and even doing a little tending to the plants there. Even the humid quality of the air was enjoyable to him in a torturous kind of way. Nothing really felt better than working up a sweat under his robes, to the point where it would begin to bead on his face, then stepping outside into a cool autumn breeze. But that was kind of the summation of him- nothing really feels good if it wasn't preceded by a little pain. 

His life so far, it felt, had been nothing but pain. So it was the little things that he tried to make count. Survive a term, get a new book. Survive a werewolf attack, take a nice herbal bath. Compartmentalize. 

He yanked the stopper and the water began to drain with a great GLUG. Usually a bath would coax him into a better mood but he felt even more rotten than before. Plush towel wrapped around his lithe frame, he trudged into his room, still dripping a little. He eyed his grey nightshirt longingly as it lay discarded on the bed from the previous morning. Instead he went to the closet, and reluctantly, grabbed another set of his teaching robes. After he dressed, he looked at himself in the mirror again. He performed a quick dry spell to his hair then reached to heal the scrape on his face before deciding to leave it. Maybe he could milk some sympathy from the old man.

With urgency to get the task over and done with, Snape trod back down the narrow steps then out the front door. As soon as he got to the walk he aparated to Hogsmede with a loud CRACK.


	6. Fractals

The girl awoke lying prone on the freezing cold flagstone tiles of the mausoleum. Darkness oppressively loomed all around her like a kind of haze. She went to move but something had ahold of her wrists and held tight. She looked down and saw with a shock that it was a skeletal hand, flesh half decomposed and hanging sickly from white bone. She screamed but no sound escaped her lips. She wretched herself free and began to run down one dark, endless corridor after the other. She felt as though she was in slow motion- although she was running as fast as she could she only moved at a snail's pace. When she chanced a backward glance, the hooded creature was always right behind her. She fell roughly, the momentum suddenly returning and scraping up her knees to the point of bloodying them. Then the bony claws were at her wrists again and she had to pull herself free once more. 

Once again, down one hallway after another, never gaining ground. Never glancing behind to find nothing. She was trapped in an endless cycle, an insane fever dream.


	7. Rhiannon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl awakes

Severus returned to his home with a whipping sound and trudged up the walk. Rain began to patter the sidewalk. Dumbledore had instructed him care for the girl while she recovered. He insisted she would be safer here than at Hogwarts. But of course, her very existence was a secret. So secret that even Severus wasn’t privy to more information. Anything to make his life more complicated, it seemed.

So it was true, then, that the remainder of his summer was to be with his girl as his charge. And of course, when he expressed his shock at the fact that it was indeed a PERSON he summoned to existence from a bell jar in a moldy old crypt, Dumbledore was as nonchalant as ever. A direct quote could well have been “Oh, I didn’t mention it? Oh well…” 

Snape knew he was a brilliant wizard, but wished he didn't hold his cards so closely sometimes. At least he was serious when Severus described his encounter in the cemetery. “The scratched face did make the old man go a little pale when I entered his office.” Snape though, grinning inwardly. But that was nothing compared to when Severus showed off the claw mark he received in his encounter with Fenrir. Dumbledore even summoned Poppy to take a look. Looking beleaguered in her pink nightgown and coat, she was unsuccessful with her healing charm as well, but redressed the wound and sent him home with some Essence of Dittany anyway after insisting on healing the scrapes on his cheek.

Severus entered his house and the first thing he heard was a light sobbing coming from the den where he had left the girl asleep. He rushed into the room, robes billowing behind him like a great bat. He found her on the bed, curled into a shivering ball. All the sheets had been kicked off and lay in great heaps on the floor. The girls knuckles were ghostly white from how tightly she had them in fists and the pained grimace from before had returned to her face. Beads of sweat traced a path down her brow and mingled with the salty tears streaming from her tightly shut eyes. 

He grabbed her shoulder and roughly shook her. “Hey… wake up...” Something about his made her double over even more and sob even harder. She began making the horrible moans of a person bereaved. Snapes heart skipped a beat, he remembered too clearly making those same sorrowful, animalistic sounds as he cradled Lily in his arms. He wanted to soothe her, to strangle her, anything to get her to stop. 

Snape then rushed to the kitchen pantry and quickly snatched up a small vial of smelling salts before hurrying back into the room. He knelt beside the bed, unstoppered the bottle, and held it to her nose. One sniff was all it took for her to be jolted awake. Mid-sob, it took her a moment to catch her breath and calm down. Her eyes were bleary and puffy from crying and lined in red like a rabbits. Finally, her eyes seemed to refocus, and her gaze shifted to his, her eyes still watery with unfallen tears.

Before he could say anything, her brows furrowed in confusion. Her eyes frantically sliced across his features. “Snape?” she asked, although it came out as more of a statement and an exclamation all at once. She reached her hand out to touch his face, but merely grazed the still raised scab from the cut Madame Pomfry healed earlier that night as he pulled from her reach and unconsciously batted her hand away.

A little stunned, he asked, “How do you know my name?”

Her eyes got a narrow, far-off look to them as they fell deep in thought. She then retreated her hands back slowly and wrapped them around herself. With eyes slammed shut, the waiting tears finally got their chance to well up and slide down her round cheeks. “I... I’m not sure…”

“What do you mean ‘You’re not sure’?” He said, a bit impatiently.

“I just don’t… remember…” she said, sobs starting to catch her breath between words. She seemed like she was trying to fight them but losing. She looked frantically around as though attempting to cling to anything familiar.

“What do you remember, then?" He started, "What is your name?” 

“Rhi… Rhiannon… people call me Rhi, I guess...” She said then paused for a moment closing her eyes. “I remember… I woke up in some kind of cold stone room, it might have been underground. I… think you were there?” After a little sniffle she continued. “There was some kind of monster and then I ran into something even worse… I... I’m sorry, I might have dreamed all that up… I was just having a horrible nightmare…” she trailed off as she brought a hand up and tried to wipe away the tears that kept coming.

Severus pinched the spot between is brows in frustration “Do you remember anything _before_ that?”

“...no” she said quietly, sensing his irritation. “...I’m sorry”

Severus sighed. “No, you have been through a lot. You’re still recovering from the Dementor and it will still be a few days before you are back to health.”

“Dementor?” she asked in a small voice.

Severus sighed briefly before going into full Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher mode. As he explained, Rhiannon’s sobs grew louder and more uncontrolled.

“Why are you crying?” Snape stopped his lecture to ask, trying to add more concern to his voice than irritation.

“A Dementor… that... that was the thing chasing me in my dream… I couldn't get away...” her sobs were full on crying now as fat teardrops fell down her face and her cheeks grew red from hyperventilation. 

Snape, never really knowing what to do with such a display of emotion was a little bewildered. He gently pat her arm “There aren’t any Dementors here, you are safe, it was just a dream...” he said “please… stop...” he thought. At the touch of his hand she couldn’t stop herself and threw her arms around his neck before her could withdraw away this time. 

He could feel her whole body shaking with heavy sobs. He momentarily tried to pull away but his kneeling position on the floor made it hard to retreat. He could feel her wet face and hot breath on his neck and that alone was almost too much to handle. Her breasts heaved into him more and more with every gasp of air she took. He could feel himself becoming aroused, despite the circumstances. 

He gave into her hug and allowed his hands to rest on her back, smoothing the back of her dress with his palms to try to quiet her sobs. “Shh... shhh” he said, trying to sound comforting but only feeling stupid. Her weeping seemed to dissipate a little.

She tightened her grip slightly and whispered “Oh, Severus..” into his neck. He could feel her lips forming the words, and it sent chills down his spine. 

“Please…” he whispered involuntarily, and he honestly wasn't sure if he meant it for her to stop or to beg her to keep going. She withdrew from his neck and locked eyes with him, her’s still full of tears. His eyes traced a triangle pattern over her face- the dark glossy orbs of her eyes that looked at him somewhat strangely, past her flushed cheeks, wet from tears, to her rose-stained, pouty lips that where lightly parted and gently panting. It almost felt like she was going to kiss him for a moment, perhaps so he wished, but they both sat like that for a few seconds and the moment passed. Rhiannon snapped awake first and drew away making to wipe her tears with the backs of her hands. 

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” she said, averting her gaze, face flushed. “I feel a little bit out of it, if I’m being truthful...”

‘Ah, of course, a woman would only ever want to be that near me if she was in some sort of sleep-deprived, Dementor-induced mania.’ A dark voice inside Snape thought bitterly, despite himself. It wasn’t like he wanted her affection or anything, the little nuisance. 

“Of course, after all, you are still recovering.” he said, trying to put the events of the last few moments behind him and summoning a hospitable air. “What you need is rest, I will bring you double dose of Draught of Sleep…” 

Severus made to leave the room, wanting nothing more than to escape the awkwardness. “Do you think… is it possible for me to get cleaned up?” She asked before he made it all the way out the door. She gazed down to herself and his eyes followed suit- her dress was dirty and wrinkled, her thin, pale legs splattered with dried mud. 

“Certainly” he said after a moment. “Follow me...”


	8. Valle Lacrimarum

Severus led Rhiannon up the dark narrow staircase and pointed out the features of the washroom. He handed her a fresh towel and a clean nightshirt and shut the door behind her.

She cranked the old faucets, each needing a little bit of torque to get going, and put the stopper into the drain. Waiting for the tub to fill up, she decided to look at herself in the old, slightly warped mirror that hung above the sink. The expression she held seemed sad although she hadn’t thought she was holding her face any particular way- it did seem to match how she felt inside, though. Her dark hair was disheveled wretchedly to the point she just knew if she attempted to brush it she would have to fight to detangle several serious knots. The frizzy curls haloed her face like a mane, the stark contrast making her skin appear even paler than it actually was. 

Her dark-brown eyes were puffy and stung a little from all the weeping she had done. She felt very stupid for it, but at the moment she couldn’t control it at all. Admittedly, still felt it building up in her chest, but after the embarrassing display downstairs she really wanted to get a hold of herself. 

With the tub filled, she twisted the faucets shut and began undressing. She lifted the dress she wore over her head in one quick motion, leaving her standing there in dark-colored panties and bra. She unhooked her bra easily from behind and slid her panties down, leaving it all in a tidy pile on the floor, and then slowly sank into the bath. She watched with surprise as the dried mud on her legs broke up and disappeared in an instant as she submerged them into the water. 

She inhaled deeply the warm steam as she was settling into a sitting position and noticed for the first time that the water was scented. “Was it sage? Spearmint? No... definitely Eucalyptus, how lovely...” she thought, cupping a handful of water and bringing it to her nose for a closer smell before rinsing her face. As she leaned back into the porcelain tub she noticed for the first time the light rain that had begun to patter on the tar roof of the small house. She sunk deeper with eyes closed, inhaling the herbal scent of the water and trying to erase the anxiety eating her up inside. 

“Why _don’t_ I remember anything?” the thought jumped into her head as she listened to the rainfall slowly build with intensity. It was as though her memories were an enormous black room and she only had a flashlight that was low on batteries. She could maybe focus on one thing for a moment before it slunk back into the darkness. This thought did nothing to fix her mood, as a wave of hopelessness washed over her. 

“Why _do_ I know that mans name, then?” another blank, but this time less dejection. This piece of knowledge seemed to be linked with a familiarity of other things she had experienced so far. This house seemed strangely familiar. The strange man all in black seemed incredibly familiar. And the more she thought about it, the idea of Dementors seemed familiar as well. 

Dementors. Just thinking about them again caused her heart to shrink back in self-defense. The wind was picking up now, and began to howl as the sound of the rain waxed and waned in intensity from the shifting air currants. Just as the clouds outside had broken to release their torrid of rain, so did her own fragile defences she had been trying to build up around her heart. She stifled the first few sobs with her hands, then quickly submerged her head underwater and quietly cried, hoping the water would dampen the noise.

Even with the vague familiarity of some of her surroundings, she didn’t feel any less lost. She simply felt hopeless and alone. She let out a big scream underwater, great air bubbles leaving her opened mouth. She then resurfaced, gasping for air. She felt exhausted, physically and mentally. The screaming she had done seemed to have been quite effective at pouring out the unstable emotions that had been welling up inside her. Unstopping the tub she stood and dried off with the towel Severus had handed her. She dried her hair and noticed that the water seemed to have completely untangled it as it soaked. “Will wonders ever cease?” she thought dejectedly, although she was grateful for it.

She slipped the black nightshirt over herself before realizing she didn’t have an option for fresh panties. Since the nightshirt hit her around mid-thigh she decided not to worry about it too much for now and continued drying her hair. With a final squeeze of the towel, she draped it behind the door and made to exit the bathroom.

The hallway was dark and cool, and it didn’t look like Severus was in his bedroom. She crept down the stairs and opened the hidden door. She peeked into the sitting room. The fireplace still roared and bathed the room in amber light. She noticed movement from the side room she had been sleeping in so she made her way there. Severus was in there, wand out, tidying up the space a little. The bed sheets had been cleaned of the mud and remade and he was in the middle of levitating a box to the corner of the room in an attempt at more floor space.

“Oh, thank you for remaking the bed” she said, both of them a little shocked that ‘wow are you a wizard?’ wasn’t how she reacted to a man with a wand levitating a box. They both let it go. Severus turned around and again was a little shocked when he had a look at her. Though he had given it to her to wear, and it didn’t necessarily cover less than what she had already been wearing, something about how she looked in his nightshirt was very pleasing to the eyes. Where it would just hang limply on his frame, on hers the way it stretched at the bust and hips made him a little weak in the knees.

“I have prepared a Draught of Sleep for you, a double dose this time. It should help with the nightmares…” She sat gingerly on top of the bed and took the vial he had held out to her. With only a second of hesitation she consumed the entire vials worth. It taste strongly of lavender and with something of an aftertaste of herbal tea. Immediately her eyes grew heavy and Severus helped her get under the covers so she wouldn’t fall out of the bed trying to do it on her own. She was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.


	9. The Farther I Fall

As Severus watched Rhi give into sleep, the urge crept over him as well. It was as though he could physically feel the weight of the dark circles fighting gravity under his eyes. They dragged his eyelids down and made his eyes sting with each additional moment he forced himself to stay awake. 

He leaves the den, leaving the door slightly cracked, and, zombie-like, makes his way up the stairs and into the dark, cold seclusion of his bedroom. He suddenly noticed the weight of the somewhat bulky bottle of Dittany that was still in his inner robe pocket as he went to undress. Severus grasped the bottle and placed it solidly on the nightstand as he made to disrobe, dark robes falling into a haphazard pile on the floor. He pulled over his head his favorite grey nightshirt that had been awaiting him on the bed. It’s fleece warmth drapes to around his knees and feels very comfortable and makes for the tiniest slice of reprieve. 

Climbing to bed, he performed his ritual struggle to get the sheets exactly how he liked them from their disordered state, but it doesn’t take long for him to wrangle them into their proper state, gently draping over his body. He took a sideways glance at the Essence of Dittany, the amber liquid illuminated beautifully from behind from the candles behind it, reminding Snape of manna from heaven. Thinking about it for a moment, he decided not to take it, at least for the time being. He knew that it would do nothing to cure the heady claw marks Fenrir left on his leg, and the additional nicks and scrapes he was left with would better serve him as a reminder to be more careful in the future. 

He dimmed the candles in the room wordlessly, and finally closed his heavy eyelids. As was his twisted tradition, he spared a few thoughts about the sorry situation life had put him in- Dumbledores expectations, endlessly deceiving the Dark Lord, being at least 3 steps ahead of everyone else... and now... being charged with caring for this strange girl… and then... he was asleep.

\----

Her dream began more softly this time- the scene a little muddled and foggy. The fog slowly lifted and she found herself lying upon the cold stone tiles of the crypt once again... but nothing constrained her wrists this time. She sat up, slowly, and looked around the room. There was a light that seemed to have no origin point but never-the-less wasn’t quite bright enough to reach far enough to see the mossy, stone walls of the room. The darkness of the catacombs seemed to mirror, in a way, her state of amnesia, she thought. 

She stood on wobbly legs and walked uneasily to the wall in front of her, nearly falling into it. It felt moist and cool with humidity and she pressed her cheek to it, fingers digging into the green moss between the masonry. She felt lightheaded and almost as though she was drunk. The room seemed to whirl around her as she clung to the wall for stability, desperate to feel grounded again. A sudden unease crept around her and gripped her heart once again in that familiar way and she knew what was to come next. Quickly after the mental unease came the physical reactions, as a horrible chill swept around and into her body, freezing her to the bone. 

She slowly turned around to see the dark, cloaked form of the dementor looming above her once again. She felt her heart accelerate as the dark form encroached closer and closer. Although unbound, she was unable to flee from this dark spectre, it’s trance having worked it’s magic quickly. She felt her grip on sanity failing, hopelessness swept in to fill the void. 

“There is no point in running, no point in fighting. This is the way things are meant to be.” These words echoed in her head, but she couldn’t tell if they came from herself or the dementor.  
A tiny part of herself still seemed to be clinging to logic, frantically pleading to her limbs- asking arms to scratch, her legs to flee. But this was a mere whisper compared to the booming whirlwind of despair that was flooding her insides.

She felt numb. “Finally” she thought, as she realized her eyes were completely dry and no tears were coming. A terrible calm came over her. She knew she was ready to give into the void that awaited on the other side of the dementors kiss. 

Cold, boney fingers clutched her small shoulders and pulled her even closer. The hooded face swept down to her, and leaned in. She leaned in as well, feeling the pull but not able to tell if it was of her own volition or not. Anxious to get it over with, and with eyes clenched in determination, she grabbed the hooded face from either side and pulled it into a deep kiss. 

Unexpectedly, flesh met flesh and she opened her eyes to see it was Severus under the Dementors cloak, thin face framed by curtains of hair, his dark eyes strangely warm. She pulled away in shock for a moment, before returning to his lips with a desperate need she’d never felt before. Bony arms encircled her, absorbing them both in his black cloak and completely fading into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I renamed this work from "Smelling Salts" to "The Fragile" because I have been revisiting older NIИ albums lately. The original title was a reference to an old Snape hurt/comfort Livejournal community of the same name that I was sad to find had been purged. I wanted to have this as a tribute to it but I am starting to feel like "The Fragile" is a better name for this particular story.  



	10. The Frail

Rhiannon woke gently, her eyes unfocused, yet darkness-adjusted enough to take in the blue hues of the den. The strange angular shapes of the room were made even stranger by the trapezoidal splash of light from the half-burnt-out streetlight outside the window. As she laid there listening to the rain, she tried to parse her dream. She felt like crying again, it was as though her heart had become a balled up piece of paper in her chest. Part of her felt that even if she got it unwrapped, it would forever be wrinkled. 

How easily she had given into the dementors kiss, she thought, how easily she had succumbed to death, to the void. And when she realized it was Severus under the dementors robes she did feel relief, but it was relief tinged with disappointment. Disappointment that the pain wasn’t actually over, that this rotten feeling in her soul would continue.

The only proper salve to her sadness she could think of was human touch. The insatiety that had grown from the dream kiss still had a grip on her and drew her out of bed.

She poked her head into the sitting room. The glowing embers of the fireplace cast a low amber light across the room. She crept slowly across the threadbare carpet, and pulled open the door hidden in the bookcase.

\---

Severus awoke with a start to find his hand already holding his wand and steadily training it at a dark figure in the doorway. With dawning clarity, he realized it was Rhiannon, her exposed skin illuminating ghostly in the dim candlelight. 

With a small sigh, she lunged across the room and into the cold spot next to him in bed. Severus lay there stiffly, unsure of what to do. He replaced his wand on the side table then returned to his stiff stance. 

“Rhiannon…?” he whispered into the darkness. 

“Is it alright if I sleep with you? ... I... had another nightmare…” She said in a small voice. Shyness crept over her as she snuggled more deeply into the blankets, tugging them gently and rolling over on her side, facing Severus. 

“Another nightmare? Impossible, the draught…” he puzzled “I wonder why you seem so immune to it…?” he said under his breath. 

She sighed a little then, closing her heavy eyes. Now that she was here, she didn't really know what she wanted to do. She had been lured out of bed by a kind of fantasy but now that it was right in front of her it felt too real. How presumptuous it would be to just assume that kind of familiarity with someone. Perhaps simply sharing a bed was enough of the intimacy she craved. A kind of peacefulness did sweep over her, wrapped in heavy quilts that lightly smelled like him. Her breath slowed and she drifted into sleep mid-thought.

Severus relaxed, giving in to this strange fate. He honestly was just so tired and didn’t want to deal with this situation. It wasn’t terrible to have a partner in bed, anyway, he thought, rolling over to watch her curled form sleeping beside him. 

He could feel her warmth radiating next to him under the blankets. He leaned in a little closer and he could smell the eucalyptus still lingering on her skin and hair. She smelt so lovely and warm he couldn’t help but breathe deeply of her. 

After a few still minutes laying next to her, observing the silhouetted curves of her body rise and fall from under the blanket, listening to her breath mingle with the light rain outside, Severus too fell asleep.


	11. The Deeper the Wound

Thunder rumbled outside and disturbed Rhiannons slumber. She whimpered and unconsciously burrowed closer to Severus, brushing up against his side. This caused him to stir, and roll over in his sleep, draping an arm over her. 

This woke her, his weighty arm dragging her all the more closer to him like a gravity well. For a moment, she thought she was back in the crypt, pressed close against this dementor of a man, enshrouded in his dark cloak. Pausing a moment, she tentatively slunk an arm around his side, lightly grazing his wounds which caused him to flinch involuntarily and hiss gently in his sleep. 

She didn’t quite understand why she was so drawn to his man, nor the salvation/damnation allegory of her dream. She watched him for a moment, his angular face unusually peaceful with sleep, dark curtains of hair messily strewn over the pillow he lay on. She decided she didn't need to know why. Whatever it was, with her memories lost, all she really had to follow was pure instinct. She burrowed her face into the warm crook of his neck, whispering his name and placing tiny kisses.

This woke him, a bit started and unsure if he was dreaming. "Rhi…" he whispered into the darkness. She withdrew from his neck and adjusted her body slightly which made him notice how close she was pressed against him. Feeling inexplicably drawn to him, as though from the persuasive spell that precedes a Dementor’s Kiss, she plunged her lips towards his.

Their lips met together for a short but intense moment before she withdrew. “Sev...” she whispered “I…” but she couldn’t finish as his lips returned to hers, this time with more heat and a growing desperation.

As their lips and tongues explored each other, Severus’s hands traversed from the valley of her waist to the heady crest of her hips. Her nightshirt was pulled up slightly, and as Severus reached the exposed skin of her thigh, he back-tracked, tucking his hand under the nightshirt and back up to her hips. He grabbed at the flesh of her ass, moaning at the realization that she wasn’t wearing panties. 

She shifted against him, feeling his substantial erection growing under his nightshirt. Her need began spiraling out of control, she wanted him to be inside her, needed him inside. Perhaps it would be the thing to make her feel whole again. It seemed like such an adolescent thought, but something about it made sense. 

As their tongues danced, a part of Severus wanted to retreat. It was all too unfamiliar, too unexpected, and, frankly, moving too fast. But a devious streak in him urged him forward. His hand that was perched on her hip slunk down to find the place between her legs. She radiated a molten heat and was dripping wet- this pleased him and made his cock pulsate even harder with want. ‘It would be so easy… so easy…’ the voice groaned.

He plunged a finger into her, and then another, while his thumb traced circles around her clit. She arched her head back and moaned as his fingers explored her depths. It only took a few minutes before Rhi was panting heavily and moaning his name.

Severus withdrew his hand and, as though of one mind, they instinctively shifted positions together. Severus positioned above her at the apex of her legs, as she shifted to her back, their lips locked all the while. 

He positioned his erection just outside of her sopping petals, pausing for just a moment before thrusting his length into her. Rhi let out a carnal moan at the sudden penetration that filled her so perfectly. Being enveloped by her felt incredible and Severus let out a moan that matched.

He hunched over her, and began thrusting lecherously, breathing hotly into her neck. He needily pawed one of her breasts, pinching at her hardened nipple. Rhi arched her back into him, her arms wrapped around his neck, thin fingers intertwining with his ebony locks. 

His sore ribs ached with every thrust but in a way that made it all the more delicious. His thrusting became more urgent and rough, just as Rhi wrapped her legs around him, allowing him to pulse into her all the deeper. He braced against the headboard and with a final savage pump he came deeply into her.

She could feel his quivering sword filling her and, with a shuddering moan, Rhi came as well. Crystalline tears welled in her eyes from the release, the high of it masking any uncertainty she had.

After a moment of breathy recovery, Severus rolled over to his side of the bed. They both lay there, listening to the rain, their pulses slowly returning to normal. Severus began to reel from the sudden clarity of mind. What had he just allowed to happen? He had let his basest instincts take control. The ramifications of the night would certainly cause a ripple effect for the Summer and beyond... 

Rhi put her head on his shoulder then and sighed contently, which snapped him from his thoughts. As he listened to her breath slow and become deeper, his worries diluted. Closing his eyes and feeling her closeness, he decided to just enjoy the moment and worry about it later.


	12. Coiled

The morning dawned pale and grey, glowing gently from behind the tacked up blankets of Severus’s small bedroom. Rhiannon opened her eyes and rolled over in bed, semi-entangled in blankets, stretching her toes and letting out a small yawn. With the dawning realization she was alone in bed, she sat up, the pads of her feet arched gracefully above the chilly hardwood floor. The sordid events of the previous night danced before her closed eyes. 

She felt okay. From her understanding of it, having nearly received the Dementor’s Kiss the previous evening had sent her into a downward spiral of misery and desolation. Something about the heady tryst they shared had shook up her insides like a snow globe. There was something about being wanted, being needed, consumed, owned...

She tiptoed out of the room and down the narrow stairwell and into the sitting room. There she found Severus, perched stiffly, buttoned up all in black, in his green wingback chair. He held a cup of black tea in one hand and The Daily Prophet in the other. 

“Morning” she said, feeling a touch under-dressed, and pulling self-consciously at the hem of the nightshirt she wore. At least this room was warm, she thought as she noticed the crackle of the fire in the hearth. 

“Tea?” he gestured without glancing up, to a tray that sat akimbo atop a tall stack of books. It contained a simple silver teapot, a porcelain teacup sitting upside down on its saucer, a tiny cream jug, smallish dish containing a pile of sugar cubes and a tidy stack of biscuits. 

She settled into the grey settee, which had been scourgified of any mud caked onto it from last night. As she reached for the tea pot and carefully poured herself a cup, Severus stole a quick glance at the way her nightshirt crept up her thigh from her extended reaching before turning back to the Prophet, crossing his legs. She held the cup to her lips and blew into it gently to cool the liquid. The warm steam that enveloped her face had citrus and floral aspects to it and after she sipped the steaming tannin-colored liquid, she immediately felt energized as the magically-infused caffeine rushed through her bloodstream shaking away any remaining sleepiness. 

Severus was first to break the silence. “So, have you made any progress with your memories?” he asked, folding the Prophet and setting it aside.

The question caught her off-guard and she nearly choked on her tea. Taking a moment to compose herself, gulping hard and sitting the cup in her lap, she thought carefully. She hadn't honestly thought about it much since her bath last night. She supposed she had just become complacent, like if there were answers she would find them in time. Besides, it felt like so much else has happened since then…

"All I can really say is… there is something about this place… about you… that is familiar to me. I honestly can't remember anything else... about my life…" 

Snape considered her, his dark tunnel-like eyes boring into her above steepled fingers. 

"Last night, when I was levitating the boxes… you didn't seem surprised… "

She shifted, taking another sip of tea. "Right, I guess it just seemed normal… but it did seem like you expected me to react."

"Any regular Muggle would have been shocked... You _are_ a Muggle, aren't you?" He asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"I don't know, I guess..." she looked down to her hands, catching a look at herself reflected in her teacup. She didn’t feel particularly magical.

"And you accepted my Draught of Sleep without any question… very strange" he stood, and paced briefly before the fire. "Would you… agree to a little Legilimency?

Rhi sipped her tea "Mind reading? Sure..." although she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea, maybe something would come out of it.

"It is something like mind reading, yes" Severus sat next to her, placed his large, thin hands on either side of her shoulders, and began to stare deeply into her eyes. "Just... relax..." he uttered in a low guttural tone.

Her mind was immediately wide open before him, vast and inky black, like a dark sea. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. He scoured the pages of her mind, through vignettes of the past 15 hours- The freezing catacombs, undressing for a bath… then the feeling of trudging through a sorrow so thick it felt like a deep pit of mud that you couldn’t pull yourself out of... then a brief flash of their rendezvous last night, from her perspective. Severus so wanted to linger there for a moment, but made an attempt to treat it impartially, continuing to the next memory. After a certain point the memories halted and he found only blank page after blank page. 

He finally reached something curious- it was like something a huge black mirror, reflecting nothing but the dark void around it. But, as he approached it, he began to see his own distorted reflection, only it was upside-down. The closer he tried to get to it, something like echos, ripples pushed him away harder and harder until he was completely ejected.

He brought a hand to the bridge of his nose, pinched, huffing a little with frustration. Being pushed from someone's mind was always a little painful, but usually it was by a person trained with occlumency and this... felt different somehow… ‘What was that…?’ he thought.

"What? Did you find anything?"

"No, I…agh!" he stopped suddenly, hissing, grabbing his left forearm as the hidden tattoo under his sleeve seared alive painfully. 

Rhi gasped "Voldemor…." Hands flying to her mouth, muffling the end.

Severus snapped a piercing look at her from under a stand of jet hair that had fallen into his face. 'Who the hell is she?' he thought. He stood "I have to go." he said, making long strides towards the door.

She was immediately up and after him, panicked "Please… do you have to?" She asked, knowing the answer.

"Unfortunately." he picked up a mask that had been tucked away at the end of one of the bookshelves near the door. “Please, make yourself at home while I am gone.” He threw on his heavier traveling cloak as he said this.

She stood there, feeling small and scared "Be safe…"

He looked back at her and nodded before leaving, the door shutting with a noisy THUMP.


	13. Recoiled

Rhiannon stood behind the shut door for a moment, an anxiety bubbling in her stomach that she couldn’t quite place. After a moment, she returned to the settee, sitting down slowly and returning to her tea. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the photos on the front page of the newspaper flickering wildly in black and white. Happy to find a distraction, she picked it up and looked it over. The stories were nothing spectacular- the Ministry denying the return of “You-Know-Who” was the main topic on the front page, and then it became more and more inane until you reached the home remedies and mail-order gadgets on the final page. 

She tossed the paper onto the settee and she jumped up, feeling restless. She made her way back up the stairs, discovering her clothes from the previous night cleaned and nicely folded on the side of the pedestal sink in the bathroom. She slipped off the nightshirt, nipples hardening from the chilled air and discovered her bra and panties neatly tucked inside of the folded dress. After dressing, she took a moment to brush her hair with an old comb that was missing a few teeth she found in the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. 

She then slipped into his bedroom, on the hunt for a pair of socks to borrow. She nudged open what she supposed was a closet door with the crook of her finger, relieved when she was met with only a wall of dark cloaks and not a skeleton or whatever else he might have had in there. There was a short bureau tucked into one side of the closet and she chanced opening the top drawer. Inside she found a well organized collection of black boxer briefs and… “yes!”… a small stockpile of grey woolen socks. She grabbed the top pair and sat on the bed to slide them on. They were long and oversized on her, but were thick and cozy despite the numerous patch-jobs they seem to have undergone. From her vantage-point on the bed, she noticed a folded jumper in dark green neatly resting on the top of the bureau. It looked so nice she couldn’t resist sliding it on over her dress. It was well worn and moth-eaten in a few places. She absolutely swam in it, the length of it nearly reaching the hem of her dress and the sleeves extending well past her fingers. Feeling significantly warmer, she trod downstairs again.

The next few hours were spent poking around downstairs, nervously looking out the window to the walk every 15 minutes or so. She glanced through a few instructional magic books while having another cup of tea with a biscuit, finding it fascinating but little beyond her. When she was done with her cup, she brought the tea tray into the kitchen and tried very hard to find washing up liquid (Under the sink all the found were a half-dozen horrible looking things suspended in liquid inside glass jars) before abandoning the task and simply rinsing their teacups and the teapot with water. 

As the hours wore on and the anxiety brewing in her stomach grew into a tight feeling in her chest that ached horribly. She sat, staring out the dirty front window at a smoggy sunset, the barrier around the house catching the low light and becoming streaked with color like an oil slick. The sunset colored the sitting room blood red. 

During the brightness of day she had been able to push away the pessimistic thoughts, but with the failing light outside they began to eat at her. What if he never came back? What would she do? The thought of it made her heart break. She tried to push that feeling away, writing it off as a stupid sensitivity left over from the Dementor, an annoying byproduct. Trying to think more rationally- she didn’t even know where she was, or really even who she was for that matter. All she had to her name was a floral dress and vague notions.

Her eyes welled, and she allowed herself a few silent tears. Trying to pass the time, she opened a book she found called “The Tales of Beetle the Bard” that seemed to be lighter fare. It was hard to make out the text through her bleary eyes, though, and even then the book seemed to mock her with a tale of brothers trying and failing to cheat Death. She just hoped Severus would be like the third brother and return to her safely. She collapsed sideways on the settee, overcome with emotion, cradling the book and sobbing mournfully. She wasn’t sure when, or for how long, but she eventually fell asleep.


	14. In this Twilight

The sudden sound of the wooden door pealing open made her jump. The sky outside was now marbled with dark purples and reds, the low fireplace cast a modest amber glow across the dusky expanse of the room. 

Severus entered, walking stiffly and looking worse for wear, the light from the fire only serving to further cast his face into shadow. He crossed the room and slumped into the green wingback chair. He had been summoned the Dark Lord's side to spend the day proving his loyalty and hissing disposable Order secrets into his ear like a second Nagini. But then it all turned rotten. He wasn’t entirely certain of all the details (And he would need to do some investigating later…)

A cloaked figure Severus didn’t recognize came in and whispered news to the Dark Lord that seriously displeased him. And when the Dark Lord was displeased, he tended to go into an inconsolable rage, sadism being one of the only things to return his mood to baseline. Snape wasn’t the only one caught in the crossfire, and he honestly got away better than most...

Summarily, through some perceived indiscretion or simply for his own sadistic entertainment, Severus wasn’t sure, the Dark Lord had forced him to endure the Cruciatus curse. Maybe one of the worst he had ever received. His body had been retchedly contorted and twisted as he heard the Dark Lord’s laughter echo through his skull. The curse made his skin feel like someone had cast sectumsemptra, but no physical marks were made. Even though any standard DADA textbook would tell you Crucio curse leaves no physical side effects, his body ached. Maybe it was just from his age, or his wounds from last night being irritated by the contortions he endured. And for the mental residuals of the spell, well, Severus tried to push them down inside himself. Nice and locked away. He was just thankful that the claw marks on his leg were not discovered nor had there been any mention of his excursion last night.

“Severus…" Rhiannon said, pausing "are you alright?” The room suddenly came into stark relief as he was pulled from his thoughts and noticed Rhiannon’s dark silhouette sitting up on the settee staring at him.

Severus composed himself. "Yes, I am fine" he said with a sigh as he stood and, somewhat stiffly, made his way to the kitchen. Opening the pantry he scanned through the many bottles until he found what he had his mind on. It was a flask containing a bright crimson liquid- a garden-variety healing potion. He knew it wouldn’t do much, but hoped it might at least take the edge off. 

“What happened today?” Rhiannon asked, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, her dark outline glowing from the fire behind her.

Severus unstoppered the small bottle and drank it down in two gulps. He was unaccustomed to being asked such questions and honestly didn't see the point in sharing. He could feel a warmth spreading through his body, as the potion took hold, his limbs beginning to feel less tense by the second. 

Wordlessly, Severus sat the empty bottle on the counter and made his way across the room to another cabinet. There he found another bottle that contained a crimson liquid of a different kind. 

He turned around and settled the two glasses he had also grabbed into the kitchen table. He popped the cork from the bottle with one hand and filled each glass generously with the sanguine liquid. As he recorked the bottle he reconsidered his position suddenly. Perhaps the healing potion had put him in a slightly better disposition. Maybe there was some utility in mentally unloading on someone...

He handed Rhiannon one of the glasses and gestured for her to follow him- glass in one hand and bottle in the other.

\---

Severus explained the events of the day to an increasingly startled Rhiannon as they sat before the reinvigorated fire of the sitting room. When he finished he took a long drink of the wine, having already halfway finished the glass during his story.

"Oh my God, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Rhi was on the literal edge of her seat, her wine yet untouched. 

"The Crucio curse leaves no physical effects." He began, lazily swirling the wine in the glass. "However, I must admit I am still rather sore from the injuries I gained last night" he was a little embarrassed as soon as he said it, cursing the wine for loosening his tongue. It was really no one's concern but his own...

"Wait, what injuries?" Grimacing slightly, Severus took another sip of the wine and then reluctantly recalled the events of last night from his own perspective as he watched Rhiannon’s face slowly grow more and more pale.

She felt so selfish. She had been so enveloped in her own trauma that she didn't even consider Severus. Her face flushed and she could feel the tears coming again.

“Don’t worry about it, drink your wine…” he said as he could see her growing upset again. He noted then that she wore his oversized green jumper and how it very much complimented the rosiness in her cheeks. ‘Why is it I think she looks so cute wearing my things?’ He mused.

Rhi took up her glass and resolutely took a big gulp. “Well…” she said, after a moment. “Couldn’t you use a healing potion on your wounds?” She licked a few drops of wine that had settled into the corners of her mouth and then brought up a sleeve-covered hand to wipe her eyes.

His mind flashed to the bottle of Dittany sitting bedside upstairs. “I just didn’t get around to it yet, I suppose” he said idly. 

“I insist you use one right now!” She said, hopping up off the couch so she could loom over him to better press her point. Her eyes were full of tears again, but the sight almost made him want to chuckle. He’d never been bossed around by someone… quite so short. With her cherubic cheeks and petite stature, she looked like she could very well have been one of his students, the Slytherin jumper not helping the look one bit. 

“Very well” he said, rising, glass in hand. “Upstairs…” he said in a dark voice, grabbing the wine bottle and creaking open the book-laden door to the staircase, his dark robes billowing behind him.

Rhiannon grabbed her drink and finished it off with a large gulp, before following him.


	15. Medicinal Uses

When Rhiannon entered the dark, candle-lit, room, Severus was already reclining in bed, holding a tall amber bottle. “Essence of Dittany allows a wound to heal quickly and the skin to regrow at an accelerated rate.” he said with a professorial air. “It is to be applied… topically” 

She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat from those words. 

“I thought, because you were so passionate about it, you could assist with the application” he said somewhat cruelly, barely concealing his smirk. 

“Fine” she said, feining confidence, moving to the side of the bed and taking the bottle from him. 

“Though, I’ve been through so much tonight... I don’t think I can even manage to undress myself!” he said, dramatically, enjoying the teasing and all the more satisfied as the rosy flush returned to her face out of embarrassment.

She sat the bottle down on the nightstand and reached for his top button. He nearly flinched- maybe he didn’t expect her to actually do it or didn’t expect how strangely intimate it would feel. Fortunately, years of practice helped him keep a stony face.

Button by button, pallid flesh was slowly unveiled from out of pitch-black robes. After she reached the bottom button, she peeled back each side of the garment. With a sharp intake of breath, she saw his entire right side was mottled blue and purple from bruising and he was covered in still-red cuts and scrapes. “Oh… Severus…” Her eyes became wet with tears again “I’m sorry...”

He gave her a questioning look. “It’s my fault you endured all this…” tears spilled over her cheeks. 

“No… No, you are not to blame at all... Here...” he sat up and poured them each a glass of wine. “This will make you feel better.” 

She took a large gulp, and wiped her tears on the jumper sleeves. She began to feel the warmth from the wine settle in her stomach and shoot through her bloodstream. She chuckled at herself “Well, I am sorry about being so emotional… I guess the Dementor… I’m not normally so weepy! At least I don’t _think_ I am..."

Severus sipped his wine, the warmth beginning to overtake him as well. “All is forgiven” he said with a smirk. Suddenly feeling a little too “Fabio” and silly with his shirt open, he peeled the cassock from his arms and discarded it on the floor. His arms were lean but toned and decorated with subtle white scars, a few fresh pink cuts, and his Dark Mark, now a placid dark red. Severus leaned back into the bed, and gestured to the Dittany. "Well... shall we?"

Rhi unstoppered the bottle and poured the honey-colored liquid into her hands. She slowly began to massage it into one particularly large cut on his ribs. A poof of green smoke emitted on contact with his torn flesh. Severus let out a low growl as he felt his flesh stretch and stitch itself back together. When she lifted her hand she saw that the wound had become nothing but a smooth white scar, and the bruising was completely gone.

Working slowly, Rhi diligently covered all of Severus's cuts and bruised skin with the Dittany. The strongly herbal, slightly minty smell of the Dittany began to fill the room with each plume of smoke. Severus was in a world of pleasure melding with pain. On one hand, he was highly enjoying being tended to, massaged, touched, and yet it came at the expense of the rather uncomfortable sensation of his torn skin knitting itself back whole. 

Once she was finished and his torso had been restored to an expanse of unsullied, milky skin she began to eye the waistband of his pants. Surely with so many other injuries, he would have some damage below the belt...

She reached for his belt buckle and began unlatching it. Severus, suddenly startled, grabbed her wrists.

"I have to make sure I got absolutely everything..." she said, casting a mischievous look up at him. He relinquished without a fight. He must learn to be less fidgety, he thought to himself. An easy task, he assumed, until he realised that simply the sensation of someone undoing his pants for him was enough to make him semi-hard. He bit his lip in an attempt to quell his growing erection. 

She slid his pants down and pulled them off along with his shoes and socks, which he was still wearing. He felt very exposed, laying there in the candlelight wearing nothing but his black briefs. 

Sure enough, the right side hip had a large bruise, it’s blotchy discoloration slightly peeking above the elastic band. 

“I knew it, you still have a bad bruise on your hip...” She said, running her finger along the band of his shorts. 

"Well, I suppose you have no choice then…" he answered, bracing for the sensations to follow. Instead of anything too salacious, she modesty peeled the side of the fabric down, and massaged the potion it into his hip. He was slightly disappointed for a moment until he realized then that her hands were then migrating to his thighs. 

"Hmm, it looks like you are pretty beat up down here too..." she said, running her hands from his knees up into his inner thigh, stopping just before reaching the bottom hem of his briefs and then slowly dragging them back down. 

He could tease her all he wanted, she thought, but she would definitely be doing some teasing of her own. She could already tell by the slight bulge in his pants that he was trying to hold himself back and she wanted to goad him until he couldn't hide it anymore. Until he couldn’t handle it anymore...


	16. La Petite Mort

She placed a kiss on his right hip bone and then his left. "Poor Sevvy…" she cooed, planting a trail of tiny kisses down the short, dark hairs below his navel that led under his briefs. He moaned lightly, despite himself. He could feel himself becoming engorged, and Rhi could feel it too as her hands had traveled down the fabric to rest on either side of his erection. She began to gently stroke him, feeling his heat through the over-encumbered fabric. 

She could hear his breathing becoming heavier as she planted several teasing kisses through the thin fabric before peeling it away and pulling it down his legs. She had known he was large from last night, but seeing him then in all his glory gave her a much better idea of his massive scale. She took it with both hands and gently stroked up and down a few times before wrapping her plush lips around the tip in a sort of kiss. She lapped slowly at the head of his cock, delighting in the shiver it seemed to send up his spine. She could taste his salty precum beading on the tip. Grasping it with one hand, she enveloped it with her mouth and sucked on the tip. Her plump lips felt so amazing wrapped around his cock. She ran her mouth up and down his shaft, her tongue seeming to mark unknown sigils on the underside. 

He couldn't handle it anymore, he needed to have her. "Come here, you" he growled, beckoning for her. Their mouths met and entangled as his hands began to roam her body. She straddled him, grinding against his cock. He could feel her heat and moisture through her panties and it was enough to nearly drive him mad.

“I think we ought to dispatch of this” he softly murmured, helping Rhi out of the oversized jumper. As soon as she was able, she was back at his mouth, kissing and sucking on his tongue. He roughly fondled her breasts through the thin fabric of her dress before his hands migrated down past her around her narrow waist onto her fleshy hips and, tossing the fabric of her dress aside, squeezed her ass. He then slipped her dress over her head as well, taking in her pale flesh and the tiny triangular slips of black fabric that still hid the most delicious bits yet.

He gently tossed her off of him, onto her back beside him. His hands began to explore her body. They were, surprisingly, not the soft hands of an academic, but rough, calloused, and scarred from handling caustic potion ingredients. But, at the same time, they were long and elegant, and made careful- yet hasty- work of stripping her of her bra and panties. His fingers raked roughly over the mounds of her breasts, pinching both her rosy nipples and causing Rhi to squirm. He brought his mouth to one nipple and lashed it with his serpentine tongue a few times before taking it into his mouth and sucking. 

“Oh Sev…” Rhi moaned as he tweaked one nipple while gently nipping at the other. She combed her hands through his hair. “Oh, please fuck me, Sev…” 

He wasn’t one who needed to be asked twice. He was over her instantly, pressing his swollen cock mercilessly into her clit. Teasing and tempting her for as long as he could resist himself. Then he was inside her with a primal urge that slowly tempered into a steady rhythm. The heat from their cores grew and intertwined. Their flesh melted together until it felt like they were one person sharing a sole experience.

Something felt more personal than last night. It was as though the previous night was to soothe a physical need, and this night was for mental healing. The feeling of closeness, intimacy… after being denied…no... after denying himself for so long- it was something he desperately needed.

Severus snapped back to the present as Rhi let out a loud moan. He watched her writhe under him, pale skin flushed, eyelids half parted as she enjoyed the pleasure he gave her. Beautiful. A burst of emotion clouded into his chest like a thunderstorm. He was overcome with joy… and afraid there was no way it could last.

He burrowed his face into her neck, inhaling deeply the scent of her hair and skin. He could feel her breasts rocking against his chest with his rhythmic pumps. She wrapped her legs around his waist, allowing him to enter her even more deeply. They moaned in unison, and his pace quickened. Rhi raked her nails down Severus’s back, her moans growing frantic. 

“Come for me…” he growled into her ear while sucking on the sensitive flesh of her neck. His caramel voice was made for taking orders from. She quivered, and let out a squeak-like moan as she came. He could feel her shuddering around him and he couldn't help but explode hard into her with a groan. 

\---

They cuddled together in the candlelight and Severus allowed himself to fantasize about a life with Rhi after the War. After the Dark Lord was defeated once more and when he was a free man. Maybe it could happen…


	17. Epilogue

Time had rushed by, seasons came and went and now Rhiannon was at the precipice. She fully understood why she had been summoned into this world- To save him.

It all flashed before her as they were hunched together in the Headmaster’s Office at Hogwarts. A horrible commotion boomed outside, screams and explosions, but they were safe for the time being. Severus was already wounded from the fray, his dark robes torn and dirty and a vivid streak of blood ran down the side of his face. He was clenching the dark mark on his forearm with gritted teeth.

“He is going to kill you!” Rhi shouted "You can't go to him! ...It's over…"

It felt like someone was holding a flame to his arm. He cradled it against himself. "How… do you know?" 

Her sudden stark realization was overwhelming and she almost didn't believe it herself. As ludicrous as it seemed, there was no reason for it to be so clear to her now if it was not her purpose. "I… read it in a book…" 

She went on to explain, as quickly and succinctly as possible, the absurd fact that she had read all of the events of his life from a book about Harry Potter and how it was kind of a big deal where she was from. When she explained Voldemort’s suspicion about the Elder Wand Severus's face grew all the more tense. 

"The bastard" he spit "it really is over… my double-agency…” He paused. “If I go I die, and if I disobey he would kill me anyway" he said under his breath. He grew resolute. "Then I have to fight… for the Order and D.A." 

Rhi knew she couldn't stop him… as long as he stayed out if sight of Voldemort she knew he would be indispensable for dispatching his fellow Death Eaters. She nodded, embracing him and kissing his cheek. He looked at her once more, then slid out of the door, reactivating the magical locks behind him.

\---

The sun grew low in the smut-choked sky of Cokesworth. Severus and Rhi sat together at the kitchen table, the heavy iron cauldron having been relocated and a linen tablecloth placed over the table to cover up the burn marks it left behind. Even when lit with harsh candlelight, Severus looked noticeably more relaxed and at peace. It has been a month since the battle at Hogwarts and things were settling into a kind of routine with the two 

Severus made her recount the events of the books, down to every detail she could remember. The battle where her "premonitions" ran out. From here on out, nothing was foretold, nothing spelled out. But that was okay.

She didn't tell him he had been her favorite character. She was secretly thrilled to be in this world and to leave her old world behind, after all, what better life than to live in a world where magic was real?

Severus dug into the meal before him- a raw steak seared only lightly on each side. The wound he endured from Fenrir had taken months to heal. With a meticulous application of dressings and potions the deep cuts did slowly recede, but it did seem to leave behind a few Lycan tendencies. Now he found himself becoming a little bit manic during a full moon, and he liked to eat his meat more on the raw side. Part of him was sad he didn’t have Remus to confide in for these things…. 

He looked across the table at Rhi, who was picking at the greens on her plate with one hand, while the other absent-mindedly stroked her swollen stomach. It was a lovely sight to behold. After so much death and pain, a new life was exciting. It made him feel that life was indeed worth living, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. She caught his eyes and smiled. With the War over they were looking forward to writing their new chapter together.

The End


End file.
